


and no one saw, and no one heard, they just followed lead

by notavodkashot



Series: words are futile devices [10]
Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Child Death, Human interaction is hard, Implied/Referenced Cheating, M/M, Marriage of Convenience, Moral Ambiguity, Seer!Mors, Tragic undertones, War and all the atrocities thereof, Words are harder, divine intervention
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-08
Updated: 2019-03-08
Packaged: 2019-11-13 18:59:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,400
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18037016
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/notavodkashot/pseuds/notavodkashot
Summary: The Life and Times of the Hollow King.Or, Mors Lucis Caelum is a Seer. He does not particularly like what he sees.





	and no one saw, and no one heard, they just followed lead

**Author's Note:**

> Written, originally, for my prompt drive over at DW:
> 
> Mors teaching Luca to fish, so he can teach noct?  
> Mors/Luca, Mors choosing Luca as shield?  
> Mors/Luca. I get the impression Mors was a little bit of a Seer? Does he ever explain to Luca his reasoning/knowledge?  
> Mors/Luca. First time Mors took Luca to bed?
> 
> But then, clearly, it ballooned out of control. I'm so sorry.

Mors Lucis Caelum died when he was nine years old. 

One moment he was standing by the edge of the ship, staring down the water, trying his best to make out the streaks of color from the fish schools swimming deep below, and then the explosion rocked the boat and he found himself falling into the water. Falling and falling, deeper and deeper he went, paralyzed from the cold, surrounded by the dark. He knew he should move, swim up, find the surface. He sank instead, eyes unseeing even if he willed them wide open, and found his lungs hurt right up until they didn’t, and then he _died_. 

He died. 

“You look sad,” Mors told the lady floating with him in the dark. 

She was less a lady and more the idea of one, glimmers of something not quite right, but then, he was still slowly sinking into the cold, dark nothingness all around, feeling himself slowly unravel, crumbling away like the sweet, buttery cookies his mother kept in a tin atop her desk. 

“You’re not afraid,” the lady said, only her voice was twisted over and then split in pieces, and he understood the meaning but not the words. 

Words were hard. 

“No,” Mors said, and wondered if she heard what he meant, which was that words were hard and feelings were harder, and he didn’t mean to be difficult, he didn’t mean to make his father mad, it was just the world made no sense and no one bothered to explain, because he was the Prince, why wouldn’t he already know all he had to know, why hadn’t he been born with all that knowledge in his blood, his bones. 

“You should be,” she said, but it was kind and patient and not at all exasperated, and he didn’t know why it hurt, but it did, deep down, burning like the water filling up his lungs, because no one was patient with him, no one had enough time to spare to not be disappointed by him. 

“Maybe,” he said, and did not cry, did not scream, merely floated on, lost in the dark. She looked so lonely, scattered in the dark, bits and pieces, and he wondered if he was going to end up that way, too. But she was nice and sad and lonely, and maybe. Maybe she wouldn’t mind, being lonely with him. He was good at that, at least. “Will you stay?” 

For a long, long moment, a moment longer than he’d been alive, nothing happened. Only dark and cold and the soothing lull of perpetual falling, but then the twinkling ghost of lights smiled at him, a smile segmented into lines and dots, scattered as far from each other as the stars in the night sky. He felt lips brushing his forehead, a hand nudging his eyes shut, a smile against his ear. 

“Alright.” 

He felt the pull somewhere under his belly, sharp like someone had stuck a hook in him, hauling him back, up or down, but mostly away. He flung up, choking on water, flailing for something to hold onto, as he came crashing down back into his bones. He found himself surrounded, lying on the deck of the ship, hands pulling and tugging at his clothes – so many hands, he hated them so much the second time he hurled it had nothing to do with water bubbling in the back of his throat – and stared up to find the fox standing on the railing, head tilted to the side, waiting. 

Watching. 

“Mors!” 

He remembered that day, for the rest of his life. Not because he’d died – he _died_ – but because he’d never seen his father cry before. 

* * *

He could see her, sometimes. Not always, but often enough to know she’d stayed. She’d _stayed_. He saw her stretched out on a windowsill, basking in the sun. He saw her asleep atop the pile of books he was meant to read and didn’t want to, because homework was boring, and no one ever bothered to explain why he should do it. He saw her, and he knew no one else did. But if the world refused to explain itself, he saw no reason to speak up. And if they called him stubborn and reckless and difficult, well, so were they, and he had the decency to not complain. 

Besides, when he saw her and he concentrated, he could _see_ through her, bits and pieces, about whatever or whoever she was curled up around. He didn’t have to see. It was always in glimpses that reminded of the dark, sinking into quiet. But he looked anyway, because he figured if he could, he should. 

“You must choose a Shield,” his father told him, lying on bed, pale and trembling, “someone to fight this war for you. To hold the fort, until you’ve found your way.” 

Mors didn’t tell his father he already knew his way, because he also knew his father would not approve of it. But Mors had seen, the day his father collapsed – he’d gone out without escort, sneaked out the Citadel to his favorite fishing hole, and his father had stormed in there to get him, ignoring the cold because he hadn’t expected the cold to seep into his bones and _stay_ there – and he knew his father would not leave the room alive. It seemed a rather undignified end for a King, the empty white walls and the constant chirr and beep of monitors and machinery trying their best to convince the King’s heart to not give up just yet. He’d seen it, the day his father slipped on the mud around the edge of the pond, face purple with anger and worry. He’d seen her sitting on his father’s chest, unseen and unfelt but there. 

“I’m sorry,” Mors told him, and meant it, arms folded over his belly, curled up in a chair in a way his tutor would shriek at him for, “you deserved a better legacy than me.” And because he’d seen into her, through her, he added: “We all deserved better than this.” 

His father laughed. He had a nice laugh, even with the gruff rasping perpetually caught in his throat now. Mors didn’t hear it often enough, because he drove his father to rage, rather than amusement, more often than not. But it was a nice laugh. Nice enough to die on, he supposed, and he didn’t, on the whole, feel too terrible, when the machines went crazy and they came in to try and stop his father’s cackling, which had turned into wheezing and then coughing, and soon enough, silence. 

Silence. 

At least, Mors thought, watching from that faraway place he went to, bird’s eye view of the world, when people got upset and he became keenly aware of how much he didn’t want to deal with it, much less knew how, at least his father hadn’t been afraid either, when he died. 

* * *

They gave him five whole days to mourn his father, before Cato Amicitia came for him and took him to the throne room, where his children were waiting for him to make a choice. The throne room was terrifying, in Mors’ humble opinion, when it was empty like that. Sound echoed in it, cavernous like the bowels of the earth, and the ridiculous monstrosity that was the throne made him feel small in his own bones. More so than usual even. 

Cato’s face was dark and angry, because Mors was not wearing his formal robes for this ceremony – he’d forgotten, five days melting into each other as he spent all of them sitting by the window, listening to his father’s favorite opera, over and over again, waiting for grief to burst like a boil and be done with it – and he thought he meant something with it. Everyone always thought he meant things, even if he’d done nothing at all. He’d given up trying to explain that he didn’t, because then everyone said he should. But he couldn’t, so he didn’t. 

It’d be fine. 

Terrible, but fine. 

He stood before his throne, mythril circlet on his head and pants with torn, worn out knees hanging off his hips, and he surveyed the line of Cato’s children, kneeling imploringly before him. He knew who he was supposed to choose. He knew this was a choice the same way dinner was a choice: options had been carefully measured and balanced and prepared, and his last word on the matter was symbolic more than anything. Mors knew he would not get his way now, any more than he would requesting ice-cream for dinner instead, because his father would veto his choice and tell him he knew better than him, what was good for him. 

But his father was dead, now, and the circlet sat on Mors head, heavy and bothersome, and it occurred to him, that no one told the King what was right and what was wrong. The King was supposed to know. They expected him to know. They expected things, and he was never going to fit those expectations, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t use them, instead. 

“Lucius will serve,” Mors said, eyes fixed on the smallest man in the line, kneeling in the far left, half a step behind the rest. 

He wouldn’t be there, if he wasn’t required to. But he was. And what was more, she was there, with him, lying back on his shadow, almost as hidden as he was. 

“You can’t-!” Cato spluttered, giving half a step forward before finding himself face to face with the tip of Mors’ lance. 

“Mind your place, Lord Amicitia. You’re not my Shield,” Mors said, frowning at him, all of fifteen years old and standing tall with the knowledge that he had eyes that _saw_ , “but I am your King.” He pulled back the lance and propped it up his shoulder, head tilted to the side. “Lucius Amicitia, you are chosen to serve as King’s Shield. Tomorrow, you’ll be bound.” 

“Your Highness- “ 

“We’re done here,” Mors said, willing the lance back into nothingness, and then strolling away amidst cries for him to stop. 

* * *

“Your Majesty, I beg of you, you _must_ reconsider.” 

Mors sat cross-legged on his bed, elbows on his knees, chin on his hands, and watched Lucius Amicitia grovel pitifully on the ground. He was a very unimpressive-looking man, barely a couple of years older than Mors himself. Thin, pale, with a bent on his spine like the smooth curves in limestone around the royal tomb entrances. 

“You’re afraid you’ll fail,” Mors told him, very much not a question, but a pointed observation of the panic boiling in Lucius’ eyes. “You’re afraid you’re not good enough for this.” 

“I _know_ I am not,” Lucius whispered, clutching the edge of the bed with long, spider-like fingers, “I was not raised for this. I am weak, in body and mind. Please, Your Majesty, choose my brothers. They’re fierce warriors and dedicated diplomats. They will wrestle the Council for you and make sure you’re afforded safety, in their presence.” 

Mors reached a hand and flicked his fingers against Lucius’ forehead. 

“They also think they know how to be King, better than I do,” Mors pointed out, one eyebrow arched. “They’ve been raised to be Shields, yeah, but not _my_ Shield. They expect me to bend and become the King they want to serve.” Mors smiled at Lucius. “I don’t bend, Luca. So, my Shield will have to bend for me.” 

“But- “ 

“Shh,” Mors said, pressing his fingers against Lucius’ lips. “I know what I’m doing.” 

And weirdly enough, he found he did. 

* * *

Mors was seventeen the first time he was kidnapped. 

Sort of. 

He’d been in Lestallum, ostensibly visiting to attend the inauguration of the new powerplant, but really just wanting to run an in-person review of the nearby base, because the reports kept coming in pristine and something in the back of his mind tingled with the certainty there was a lie woven in them that he hadn’t been able to trace yet. He’d sneaked out of the suite and gone out to wander the city, and he knew for a fact he would find Luca having a meltdown about it once he went back. But it’d never made sense to him, to be afraid of his own people. The Council had basketfuls of kittens every time he went out of his way to actually interact with any of his subjects, like they were dirty little secrets that shouldn’t be acknowledged. Mors liked best, the people in the villages and the farms out beyond Insomnia’s borders, who lived simple lives and didn’t bother trying to sort out the stupid protocols that tried – in vain – to govern his. 

He’d wandered into a bar, as the sun went down, trailing after a cluster of soldiers because he wanted to hear what they had to say about their assignment, and when the brawl started, he’d found himself standing in the middle of it, blinking in bewilderment at the whole thing. 

“Duck, you fucking idiot,” the man who started the attack snarled at him, right before he tackled him to the ground, and shielded him from the explosion that rocked the entire block. 

“I’m not the one who set up a bomb five feet away from himself,” Mors pointed out dryly, looking up at the passed-out idiot whose body was pinning him down at the moment. 

He didn’t fight the soldiers when they grabbed him and threw him in a van alongside his unconscious companion. It was, after all, the sort of interesting he’d been looking for, that was so conspicuously missing from the reports he received every other week. They were unceremoniously thrown into a cell, once they reached the base, among jeering taunts about their impending deaths. 

“Why?” Mors asked, as his companion sprung back to life, fiddling with the cuffs on his wrists, eyes looking wildly around. 

Mors had long gotten rid of his own restraints, considering the locks were easy to pick and he’d been bored out of his skull, waiting. 

“The fuck?” He snarled in response, and Mors got the feeling this was a man who snarled quite a bit to make his point. “What do you mean why?” 

“People who set up bombs for fun tend not to care about protecting innocents caught in the crossfire,” Mors pointed out, head tilted to the side and amused smile accented by the split lip he’d gotten for the grave crime of not cowering enough to their captors’ taste. “So, it follows that you’d have a reason for it. I’d like to know it.” 

“What the hell is wrong with you, you creepy little shit?” The man demanded, scowling furiously at him. “You’re new in town or something?” 

Mors shrugged. 

“Humor me.” 

“The Crownsguard big honcho here, Captain shithead,” the man snorted, spitting to the side to punctuate the insult, “he came here six months ago. Said he had to secure Lestallum, ‘cause of the war. Mostly he just likes feeling he has a big dick. Razed four towns in as many months. Said there were Nilf scum encroaching in them, but really all he wanted was the land for his friends, and the pretty things to warm up his bed. Cunt of a King ain’t gonna do shit about it, since he put the bastard in his perch, so it’s up to us good Samaritans to fix it.” 

“How dreadful,” Mors said, eyebrows arched. “What’s your name?” 

“Tristan,” the man replied, frowning the same frown most people frowned, when Mors refused to react the way they expected him to. “Tristan Lycyaena. You?” 

Mors smiled, summoning his lance back to his hand. 

“Mors Lucis Caelum,” he said, and threw a fireball at the furthest wall of the cell. “Your cunt of a King.” 

* * *

Luca was upset about Lestallum, both because he hadn’t seen it coming and because he hadn’t been there to rescue Mors. 

Mors considered it a victory, mostly. 

Tristan had a good set of eyes and ears around the city. He’d promised to use them for him, in the future. Mors was glad for it, more so because she hadn’t been there at all, when he’d made the choice to ally himself to the raucous son of a bitch. Mors realized, as he shook his hand before leaving, that he wouldn’t mind calling him a friend. 

“It’s unsightly,” Luca said, as they drove down to Caem, to assess the damage of the Empire’s latest incursion by sea. “He’s a thug and a terrorist and just…” 

“Probably,” Mors agreed, arms folded behind his head, “but everything about me is unsightly anyway.” 

Lucius buried his face into his hands. 

* * *

Over the years, Mors found himself spending more and more time in Lestallum, than in Insomnia. 

After all, the Council ruled Insomnia. They held no real love for him, and the years had driven home the truth that he didn’t particularly care for their love, so they no longer had any qualms about making it known. It was better, anyway, if they focused on consolidating power in the capital, and left him to fight the war the best way he could. On the other hand, Tristan ruled Lestallum, with contracts and whispers and half-truths, and whenever Mors called him a monster for what he’d become, Tristan laughed and kicked him out of the room at gun point. It wasn’t that hard of a choice, to decide which one he liked better. 

“He’s in love with you.” 

Mors looked up from the papers he was definitely not reading and blinked when he found Amalthea sprawled indecently all over his windowsill. Her father was one of the four owners of the powerplant in Lestallum, and he’d have never given her a second thought if she hadn’t tried to seduce him into her bed and the scandals she could blackmail him over it, or at least bully him into fathering a bastard she could profit off from. She’d been rather upfront about her intentions, given that Mors had been equally blunt in his general apathy regarding the female form. He was three quarters sure he was apathetic to the human form, in general, but then, he’d never had a chance to entertain a man in his bed yet. 

It wasn’t pity that made him take her in, without the need for blackmail or scandals or even sex. Her father had disowned her and her sister, yes, but she was sly and ruthless, and she thought his court was _fun_. He could spare the coin to keep her and her sister living comfortably in Insomnia, and in exchange he had two very viciously brilliant minds corralling his court and keeping it out of his hair. 

“What.” 

“Your Shield,” she said, looking over her shoulder with that particularly snide smile of hers that made Mors partial to letting her get her way, if nothing else because everyone else always agreed it would be a terrible idea if he did. “He’s in love with you.” 

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Mors snorted, rolling his eyes. “He’s married.” 

“Oh, yes, because arranged marriages are such a great measure of a man’s desires,” Amalthea snorted right back. “I bet you these earrings,” she said, pointing at the diamond encrusted monstrosities hanging off her ears, “that if you so much as imply it, he’ll jump at the chance to fuck you. Hell, he’d fuck you on his married bed, if you asked him.” 

Mors gave her a skeptical look. 

“What would I even do with your earrings?” 

“Nothing, because that’s a bet you’re not winning,” Amalthea pointed out, one eyebrow arched tauntingly, “but you’ll buy me a prettier pair, when you lose. I hear sapphires are about to come in fashion this season.” 

Mors sighed, but didn’t argue further. He never got far, arguing with Amalthea. That was precisely the reason he kept her and her sister around, after all, and why he paid for her whims, since no one else in his court got far, either, arguing with her. He could have tried to see, to find a way out of the labyrinth of words she liked to wrap around him every time they chatted, but he didn’t want to. He didn’t control what he saw, what it meant. Years upon years, of war and intrigue and secrets caught in glimpses of unexplained certainties had taught him well the difference between could and should and must. He still felt like he should do all he could, but he’d also learned to see the difference in doing something because he wanted to, and because he had to. 

He wondered, sometimes, when the screaming inside the ring echoed too loud for even him to ignore, if this too was something he was supposed to be born knowing already, another of those expectations he had no choice but to fail as soon as he became conscious of them. He thought of his father, crying for the son he lost at sea, and which the sea was gracious enough to give back. 

He tried not to see, these days, even as the fox curled up lazily on Amalthea’s shoulders, sat impertinently on Luca’s lap, batted at the shiny bangles decorating Tristan’s wrists. Mors knew the shape of the pits around him, knew it would take less than nothing to fall face first into them. 

He wondered if that meant he’d finally learned to be afraid. 

* * *

“I would let you,” Mors said, later that winter, lying on his side on the padded cot, lined with thick coeurl fur, that had been set out for him. 

The quartermaster had given him a horrified look when Mors had asked him if the platoons stationed along the coast of Cleigne had cots that warm, stuttering about cost and supplies. Luca had brokered a deal with Tristan’s runners and the garula farms down in Duscae, to send furs and little packets of salted meat and pure fat to the main strongholds in the frontlines. Food and warmth, Mors reckoned, were a fair price to pay upfront, when it came to asking his soldiers to die for him. For all of them. 

“What?” Luca asked, looking up from the bag of letters he was slowly sorting through. 

Years had not been kind to him. Nothing had been kind to him, specially not Mors. Luca had a face ten years older than he was, his body thin and bony, like a tree naked in the snow. But he was loyal, and he was stubborn, and half the time Mors was certain he almost enjoyed the daily frustrations of the place in the world he’d chosen for himself. 

“Fuck me,” Mors said bluntly, for lack of anything more tactful coming to mind, “I’d let you if that’s what you wanted.” And then, because Luca was busy spluttering over the letters he’d inadvertedly torn in his hands, he added, “Amalthea insists you want to.” 

“You’re my King,” Luca rasped out, words tremulously quiet against the howl of the blizzard raging outside. 

“Evidently,” Mors snorted, shifting so he was sitting on the edge of the cot. “What’s that got to do with anything?” 

Luca spluttered a hysterical laugh, burying his face in his hands. 

“Don’t,” he pleaded, when he realized Mors was merely staring at him, head tilted to the side, waiting. “Don’t tempt me.” 

“Why?” Mors asked, watching as Luca stood up, shoulders trembling, trying to compose himself. 

“Because it is not my place,” Luca whispered, “and I’m not sure I wouldn’t take you up on it, anyway.” 

“Your place is wherever you decide it is,” Mors said, frowning as he said so, because Luca and the places that belonged to him were by then a stale argument between them. “Luca.” 

“Please.” 

Mors sighed. 

“Come here.” 

And, docile like a lamb headed for slaughter, terrified and eager all at once, Luca went. 

* * *

Amalthea wore sapphires the size of cherries during the spring balls. 

* * *

Four weeks to the ninth anniversary of his reign, Mors sat in a damp, wet cave, clutching his spear and hissing behind his teeth, to swallow back the scream that kept trying to come out. He was not, as a whole, a stranger to pain. They were at war, and he kept a close eye on it, touring the frontlines and supporting his forces personally as often as he could. The Council had wasted a forest worth of paper writing him letters to let him know what a terribly reckless idiot he was for that. It was something else, though, to be in pain by chance and to be in pain by choice. 

It wasn’t really a choice, though, all things considered. Not after he stood over his maps in his tent and found _her_ lying across a carefully sketched route up Ravatogh and _saw_. He hated seeing. He hated it more than anything else in the world. He hated it all the more because he couldn’t quite bring himself to hate her, when she looked at him, more ears than anything else, pale white fur almost blueish in the faint light. He tried not to. Told himself not to. But sometimes it was worse to not do it, to lie awake in his cot after a particular defeat, Luca’s body curled like vines over his own, and wonder if he could have done something to stop it. If he could have seen a different way to do things. 

Mors had seen her sprawled on his map and saw before he thought better of it, and that’s why he’d taken the lead even though he knew it would end poorly. If he didn’t, anyone he sent would have died, slaughtered like cattle by the monster roaming the plains. If he did… well, at least he hadn’t seen himself die, so that was perhaps a sliver of chance to make it through. He had better odds than his men, fighting something that powerful. It made sense. It was sensible. 

It still hurt, though. 

He hated that he couldn’t logic away the pain, the same he way he’d learned to logic away all distractions. He pressed his hand to his side, willing magic to try and close the gaping hole in his gut, but while that should work in theory, he was not particularly talented in the finer points of magic to begin with, and he didn’t have a proper conductor for it, like a potion or an elixir. 

And it hurt, really bad. 

But at least he was alive, and the daemon that had nearly gutted him was not. Mors had never cared, before, that his Armiger was mostly empty. His father had died, before he was old enough to go out and claim the power of his Ancestors. And deep down, he always wondered if he’d have gotten it at all, considering his magic was nowhere near the vast ocean his father had commanded, once. It was just another disappointment to the ever-growing pile. 

Come morning, he stumbled out of his hiding place, vaguely aware of where camp was supposed to be. It was probably bad for morale, for him to go in there with a hole in his gut and most of his blood smeared down his pants. But at least he was alive. 

He was alive. 

Just not enough for Luca’s taste, considering the way he looked at him, once the outlook recognized him and a sea of hands fell on him. He almost didn’t mind, since it meant he no longer had to walk. He passed out in the tent, with the echo of Luca’s sobs in the back of his mind, but by then he was too exhausted to explain himself. 

The fox curled up next to his head, soft fur gently cradling the side of his face, and Mors didn’t stop to wonder if he’d wake up at all. 

* * *

“We had such a great thing going,” Amalthea told him, sitting on his bedside and looking down at him with an unamused tilt to her mouth, “and you had to go and ruin it by nearly getting killed.” 

Mors stared at her for a moment, and then snorted. 

“Apologies for the inconvenience, Lady Exequias,” he muttered, and then hissed in protest when she unceremoniously reached out to jab a finger right into his gut, which made the pain flare up and drown him in nausea. 

“Marry me,” Amalthea said suddenly, frowning a borderline pout of annoyance. 

Mors gave the notion the due thought it merited, and then shrugged. 

“Sure.” 

She squinted, taken aback. 

“…just like that?” 

He stared at her, tired and in pain – nothing made the pain go away, radiating in hot waves all across his gut – and waited. He always waited. He had nothing else to say, and waiting meant those who knew him best knew to think about what they were asking, who they were asking… 

Amalthea sighed, shoulders slumping slightly, and for a moment she did not look quite as purposefully posed as she usually did, sure of herself and uncaring if the world knew it. For a moment she was younger and softer and almost kind, the way she leaned in and pressed her lips to his forehead, the same sort of gesture he’d seen her dote on her sister for years now. 

“Six have mercy on Lucis,” she said, reaching out to pull the covers over him, tugging them in place. “Their King is an idiot and their Queen is _worse_.” 

Mors knew for a fact the Six had no mercy, lived with the knowledge of it basking in sunbeams and leaving invisible fur everywhere she went, but he didn’t say anything, because knowledge was a curse, as far as he was concerned, and he hadn’t met anyone he hated enough to share his secrets with. 

* * *

“You’re upset,” Mors said, sitting on his desk, ignoring the pile of reports he still had to read before the day was done, and instead focusing on wrapping wire and shiny trinkets into a lure. 

Few things were as soothing to his frayed nerves, like sitting out in the shade and test his will against a fish’s. But the chances to go out at least for an hour or two were few and far between, and in the meantime he entertained himself by making lures instead of whatever was fueling his headache that hour. He was still weak, from his injury, not quite fit enough to head out back into the frontlines, but he tried his best to make the most out of his confinement in Insomnia. 

Luca looked up from his desk and stared at him with a blank look for a long, long moment, before he sighed. 

“It would be hypocritical of me,” he muttered, dropping his eyes to the papers before him, “to be upset.” 

But, as Mors watched him, he reached into the inside pocket of his jacket and pulled out a small metal flask, and took a furtive swing from it, like it was something he shouldn’t do, even though Mors had never chided him for it. 

“Kings and Shields,” Mors said, leaning back on his chair, staring at the ceiling, “we’re only as good as the legacy we leave behind.” 

Luca laughed. It was not the pleasant rumble after he shared a particularly vicious pun he felt especially proud of. It was soft and brittle and left a sour taste in Mors’ mouth. 

“What would we even be,” Luca asked, ever so carefully not looking at him, “if we weren’t who we are?” 

Mors pondered an answer for a long time. 

“No one,” he said, at long last, and then stared at the half-finished lure on his desk, not quite sure what he’d been trying to do with it anymore. 

“Do you love her?” Luca asked, hushed and rushed, like he had to get the words out before he lost his nerve and needed another swing of his little flask to convince himself to go through with it. 

“No,” Mors replied without skipping a beat, slowly unfurling the lure and dismantling it back to base components. He licked his lips. “But I trust her.” He fingered the tuffs of pale-yellow feathers, frowning. “I do care. She’ll laugh, if you tell her, of course. But I suppose I could do worse for a wife, than a friend.” 

Luca stood up abruptly enough the chair nearly clattered into the floor. 

“Yes,” he said, not looking at Mors at all, “you could. Excuse me.” 

Mors watched him storm out of the room with that gliding stroll of his, that was not a stroll and also not a dead run, but still felt a little like both. He stared and stared and then went back to his lure and did not ask himself anything that Luca did not ask him. 

Mostly because, six lures and four hours later, he still had no idea how to answer. 

* * *

Come May, Auriga Exequias married Xerxes Aurum, a rich magnate of old Altissian blood. Three days later, Amalthea Exequias became Amalthea Lucis Caelum, and the scandal at the implications of Accordian blood – almost Niflheimer blood, really, to those who cared about it – so closely tied to the throne sent the court into throes of rage like Mors had never seen before. He didn’t much care for it, of course, because his wife’s brother-in-law had as much say into what he did, as anyone else, except perhaps Luca. That was to say, none at all. But politics were ridiculous, and Mors had always known it, and he endeavored not to care about it anymore than the sea cared one whit about a sailor’s thoughts. 

“I’ll set him straight,” Amalthea promised, as they lied on their bed and ate the – mostly – decorative plums someone had left in a bowl by the dresser. 

All their clothes had been laid out on the chairs around the newly furnished bedroom, as soon as they had been able to escape the reception. They had stayed a lot longer than Mors would have wanted to, really, but Amalthea had told him to suck it up and let her bask on it, if nothing else because at least one of them should enjoy their wedding, considering what it had cost. But now they were alone, and Mors was as uninterested in consummating their union as he’d been all those years before, when she’d first sneaked into his room in the Leville. They had time, anyway. He hadn’t even been surprised when she’d assured him she’d sort out the dates to make sure he had heirs to shut the Council up with, as soon as possible. 

He found it weirdly soothing, the transactional way she looked at it, like it was just another delicate business transaction she had to execute to perfection, all downsides and upsides considered and accounted for. It made sense, the way she looked at the world, for all it was nothing like his own view. But it made sense, and Mors treasured that, more than he would ever be capable of admitting to anyone but himself. 

He swallowed a mouthful of sweet fruit and winced. 

“Please don’t,” he said, sincerely, and licked the bright red juice sliding down his wrist with a wince. 

“He’s _in love_ with you, sickeningly so,” Amalthea insisted, snorting. “He’s being stupid about it.” 

“Even so,” Mors insisted, frowning. “Let it be.” 

“You,” she said, reaching a finger to poke straight at the scar in his gut, which didn’t hurt quite so much anymore, but still smarted when the weather was just right, “are a laconic, emotionally stunted _dipshit_.” Mors blinked up at her but didn’t exactly argue her point. “Do you have any idea how incredibly rare is for someone as, well, _you_ , to find love? True love, even?” 

“…does it matter?” Mors asked, and hissed when she twisted her finger, pressure finding the right nerve to make his muscles spasm on reflex. “Amalthea.” 

“If you let it fester, he’ll be bitter,” she said, with the air of someone speaking from experience. “Once he’s bitter, he’ll never love you again.” She sighed and picked up another plum, biting into with a roll of her eyes. “Mors.” 

“Alright, alright,” he said, laying back to try and find a posture where his side stopped bothering him. “You’re going to do it anyway, regardless of what I say.” 

“Well, yes,” she laughed, licking her fingers. “But now that you’ve married me, you get to hear about it before I do it.” 

“ _Why?_ ” He asked, not bothering to hide how mystified he felt. 

“Mostly because it’s more fun that way.” She paused. “For me, anyway.” 

* * *

Two days later, sometime before lunch, Luca stormed into the office with a wild look on his face, flushed from something more potent than the contents of his little flask. Mors stared at him blankly, inwardly bracing for whatever calamity his wife – he had a wife now, it felt strange to think about, but he thought it often, for the sake of getting used to it faster – had unleashed upon him. Luca closed the door behind himself, locking it, and took a moment to lean against the solid wood to compose himself somewhat. He crossed the distance in seven long strides and sank a hand into Mors’ hair, pulling him up until he could slide his mouth over his own. He tasted of alcohol and rage and a million other things Mors couldn’t quite decipher. 

“I love you,” he hissed into his mouth, forehead pressed against Mors’, and then shuddered as he closed his eyes. “My life would be so much easier, if I didn’t. But I do.” He opened his eyes and tightened his grip on Mors’ hair. “I do, you brilliant, vicious _bastard_.” 

“I’m sorry,” Mors said, and meant in the general, rather than the specific, because he’d never been very good at being apologetic for being who he was. 

“I’m not,” Luca snorted, and his hold relaxed into a caress, fingers combing through Mors’ hair. “I know for a fact I will be, one day. But not today.” The next kiss was softer, less a declaration of war punctuated by teeth, and more the ghost of those nights out in the frontlines, huddling for warmth and something kind. “Not today.” 

Mors waited, and waited, and waited, for the words to come tumbling down his mouth. But they didn’t, couldn’t, weren’t even there. So, he leaned in to rest his forehead against the bony edges of Luca’s shoulder, and sighed. 

“Alright.” 

Luca laughed, and it was an entirely new sound altogether. Mors wondered how long it’d last. 

* * *

The manor in Caem was as different from the Citadel as possible. The corridors were wide and well lit, and the windows were open always, letting in the sea breeze to sit heavy and comforting in their lungs. Mors thought it was a good place to raise a child. A place away from the Council’s ploys and the endless parade of protocol to make Kings out of children. He shared his thoughts with Amalthea as much as he shared her bed, which was to say very sporadically and for very good reasons, so he kept his sudden bursts of bitterness to himself and contented himself with watching her glow and fuss about the swell in her belly as the months piled on. 

His son was born amidst a storm. The sky went black an hour after noon, and remained so, rain falling heavy and thick all afternoon, as the sea slammed up the cliffs, crests of water threatening to swallow the lighthouse shining on valiantly in the distance. Amalthea endured, the way she endured the court’s intrigue, the same way he endured the growing uncertainties of the war. She endured, and birthed a son for him, just as a sliver of moonlight began to sneak its way through the curtain of clouds above them. 

When they called him into the room, he stopped at the doorway, watching his wife cradle his child in her arms, expression blank more out of habit than any real conscious thought. 

“The Crown Prince would like to meet you, Your Majesty,” Amalthea said, voice tired but no less lively because of it. 

But Mors was not seeing her. Or him. Or anything he could articulate. Mors was rooted where he stood, a tree weathering a different storm altogether, because lying on the pillow by Amalthea’s head sat the fox, pitiful look on her kind eyes, and a nightmare of truths caught up in her tail. 

“Mors,” Amalthea said, frowning, and he found himself walking forward, mechanically, reaching out to hold the tiny bundle of hopes and dreams so finely powdered into despair. 

Mors sat at her bedside, cradling his son, and for the first time in twenty years, sobbed his heartbreak into the boy’s hair. 

* * *

Mors sat on the windowsill, watching the sun rise in the horizon, painting the water purple as it began its slow ascent into the sky. 

“I want to See,” he said, looking over his shoulder at the fox balanced precariously on the rim of the crib. 

Further in the room, Amalthea laid on the bed, chest heaving steady and slow, deeply asleep, echoing the breathing of their son. 

“I want to See all of it,” Mors said, staring right into the fox’s eyes. “Not just the bits and pieces you think will make me do what you want. I want to know.” 

The fox’s tail swished behind it. It was such an insignificant looking creature, but it was her as much as the glimmers in the dark had been, cohesive, despite how gaping the holes were. Mors stared and stared, willing to wait until the end of days, if necessary, and knew she knew it too. Of course, she knew. Of course, she saw. 

Then the fox stood up and raised its head, the bright red horn on its forehead glowing searingly bright, like staring at the sun from up close. Mors dug his hands into the wooden edges of his seat, swaying in place but refusing to look away. Refused to scream. He felt the light sear itself into his eyes, burning deep into his soul, scarring up almost at once. He felt her fade, bursting into shards of light, scattered once more into whatever pit existed between Life and Death. 

But it didn’t matter. 

It didn’t matter. 

Even when he closed his eyes, he Saw. 

* * *

“Time is not a river,” Mors said, tightening the knot around the new lure at the end of his line. “Or an ocean.” 

Luca sat by his side, watching him take aim and swing the rod with almost instinctual ease. Luca knew nothing of fishing. Nothing at all. But he liked watching Mors, and by then Mors knew better than to question it. Luca gave and gave and held, and in the end, whatever he asked, Mors let him have. 

“Mors?” 

Mors stared at the shadows swimming under the surface, tracing where they had been, would be, could be. 

“Time is a _bitch_ ,” Mors said, spitting out the word as the line snagged on something monstrous, pulling hard enough to threaten to drag him into the surf. 

It wouldn’t, of course, but the certainty of it did nothing to make him stop wishing it would. 

* * *

Convincing Amalthea that they should have a second child was far from difficult once Auriga shared her own news. Amalthea could never stop the compulsion to do everything her sister did, to try and make their lives sync up like their hearts. Mors didn’t feel remorseful for it. One should do what one could, always. Kings had to do what they must, not what they wanted. And Seers above all, Seers did what they had to, regardless of what they actually wanted. 

So even if he wanted nothing more than to dig out his own grave and lay on it until the rage stopped boiling in his gut, he did what he had to, instead. Someone had to. The Ring had burned painfully in his hand, when he’d seen it for what it was. He imagined the Crystal would not offer any comfort, either. He wanted nothing more than to throw the Ring into the sea, to take his strongest spear, all his hate sharpening its tip, and throw it straight at the heart of the Crystal. But that would solve nothing. That wouldn’t change anything. 

Mors, eyes wide open, stared at the horizon looming over him and his family, and knew he wouldn’t be the one to fix it. But he could prepare the way. He could make the choices no one wanted to make, set in motion the tragedies no one would want to admit were necessary. 

“You have a terrible sense of humor,” Luca told him, voice dry and terrible. “Honestly, Mors. Regis? Really?” 

Mors watched Amalthea and Auriga sitting side by side, Sylvia and Regis in their arms, while Lumen sat on the floor, humming under his breath as he scrawled with crayons on a book. Mors ignored the bile raising almost on reflex at the back of his throat. 

“Yes,” he snorted, “I suppose I do.” 

And knew that in the morning, it was not the Empire he was marching out into war against. It was something bigger, quieter, more insidious. But he was a King of wartime, tested and forged in the heat of skirmishes and battles, taught since day one, the futility of his own fight. 

He knew what needed doing, he only had to live long enough to do it. 

* * *

“Tell me you didn’t know.” 

Mors studied the man standing before him, the grave shadows inside the tent distorting his shape entirely. He looked taller than he was. Wider. Not stronger, but sinister in a way he’d never been in his life. Mors stared and stared, cataloging every tiny detail and how it measured to the ghost of maybe he’d seen folded into Luca’s smile, two years prior. There was a hollow satisfaction in his gut, at how cleanly both images matched, how precisely he’d set events in motion. 

“You _know_ things,” Luca hissed at him, face pale and hands shaking at his sides, with enough fury and despair curled in his voice to counter the ridiculousness of that statement. “You do things, for a reason, however stupid or insane those things might seem at first glance. I know that. I believe in you. I will fight whoever needs fighting, to make sure you can do what you must.” He swallowed hard. “But they were my family. They never forgave me, for what you did. But they were my family.” When he choked on a sob, façade of wrath cracking right in the middle, Mors felt it almost like a physical blow. “You sent me to Galdin, to give me an excuse to not be there. Tell me you didn’t know.” 

The ancestral seat of the Amicitia family, the massive estate sprawled on the Western rim of Taelpar Crag, had been burned to the ground. Such a large force evading the Wall and the frontlines to strike deep in the heart of Lucis, at such a significant target, it was not something that could be ignored. Mors understood the logic of it, after all. His family had been removed from their obvious place in Insomnia, hidden away in the last place anyone would care to look for them. He was notoriously skilled at vanishing without trace, for no other reason than he felt like it. The only obvious target left, to cripple his already weakened hold on his throne would be to assassinate his Shield, and all other possible candidates left in the world. Mors had spent that night sitting with Tristan on the roof of his favorite hideout in Lestallum, staring at the powerplant’s lightshow and ignoring the certainty in the back of his head, as Luca’s nieces and nephews were strangled in their cribs. 

Mors stared at Luca, at the desperate plea in his eyes, the way his lips trembled with rage and helplessness, and stumbled upon the rather untimely realization that he was probably hopelessly in love with the idiot. 

“I didn’t know,” Mors lied, reaching to hold Luca’s face in his hands, meeting his eyes straight on. “I don’t… I don’t control what I see, Luca. I would have stopped it, if I could have.” 

Luca’s eyes filled with tears. Mors kissed each and every one of them, sitting with him in the dark, holding him as he cried, and waited for guilt to come. 

He knew it wouldn’t come, but he waited all the same. 

* * *

Lumen was a happy child. 

He was quiet and thoughtful and as prone to questioning the obvious as Mors himself had been, at that age. But Lumen had his mother, who delighted in him simply for existing. Lumen had his aunt, who kept endless shiny baubles in her pockets for him to fiddle with and didn’t care one whit if he broke any of them. Lumen had his brother, who clung to his side and accompanied him in every adventure his young heart desired. Lumen had his cousin, who argued and demanded and started fights with him, purely because her love was as contrarian as her soul. 

Lumen was a happy child. 

He was happy in all the ways Mors had been miserable when he’d been his age. 

He was happy, Mors was sure, even the day he slipped off a rock along the breakwater that formed the little bay where Mors liked to fish when he was so sick of himself he needed not to think, and he fell into the water. Down and down he went, caught by the current born of the waves pushing against the rocks, air stolen like light in a storm. 

Lumen Lucis Caelum died when he was nine years old, but unlike his father, he did not come back. 

* * *

“I can’t do this anymore,” Amalthea told him, sitting with him on the roof of the manor, sharing the same bottle of whiskey. “I thought I could, but I can’t. I can’t, Mors.” 

He’d never gotten a taste for whiskey, even though he’d tasted it plenty of times over the years, often drinking the aftertaste on Luca’s mouth. It burned harshly on the back of his throat, threatening to make him hurl, but it made Amalthea feel better, and he needed to feel worse. Much, much worse. It was stupid to realize he’d run out of grief many years ago, but it was true. When he stood before his son’s tomb, all that came to him was rage. Not even purposeless, shapeless fury, the kind that had given Luca strength to demand the truth from Mors. It was a very well sharpened edge by now, his anger. It was deeply rooted, sturdy like the giant trees in the Myrlwood. 

“I know,” Mors said, because of course he did. He swallowed hard. “You know the children must stay.” 

Because they couldn’t simply handle over hostages to Accordo and expect Niflheim to do nothing about it. And she knew it. He knew she knew. But she was angry and heartbroken, and she needed someone to hate for it, because she wasn’t rational, when it came to her family. 

“I was a good Queen,” Amalthea whispered, laughing into her hands, because she’d long ran out of tears. “I hope your next one is shit at it, you fucking ingrate.” 

She knew he’d never marry again. Of course, she knew. But Mors was nothing if not willing to be the canvas where she painted all her rage. He wrapped an arm around her shoulders and pulled her against his side, pressing his lips against the crown of her head. 

“I love you,” he said, because he did, just not the way he was meant to, and he knew she knew it, because she cackled a sob, and clung to him well after the moon sat high above the sky. 

* * *

“How do you do it?” Tristan asked him suddenly, as they walked through the tunnels beneath Lestallum, heading to his newest hide out. He looked over his shoulder with a frown, and Mors was assaulted by the horrible realization that they’d grown old without meaning to. “The single parent thing?” 

Mors smiled thinly. 

“Very poorly.” 

He braced himself, as Tristan stopped, holding the torch in a slightly trembling hand. 

“I have a daughter,” Tristan whispered. “She’s five years old and she loves coeurls and the color blue.” He rubbed at his face, not to hide the tears, because they were way too far past caring about that, but purely for the sake of emphasis. He turned away. “Fucking shit, Mors. Scum like us shouldn’t have kids. We’ll just. We’ll fuck them up and they’ll forever hate us for it.” 

“What’s her name?” Mors asked, even though he knew, and knew better than to tell Tristan about it. 

“Aulea,” Tristan said, swallowing hard. “Aulea Lycyaena.” He laughed. “Poor little shit deserves a better name.” 

“If everything else fails,” Mors told him, reaching a hand to squeeze his shoulder, “she can be Aulea Lucis Caelum one day.” 

“Fuck that, you shit,” Tristan snarled, shoving him away, “I’ve seen what your fucking Queens go through.” 

Mors smiled. It almost reached his eyes. 

* * *

Regis had grown into a sullen teenager. Not miserable, but certainly not as happy as his brother had been. Mors knew he couldn’t afford that freedom, not if he was meant to survive what he would. It was a delicate balance, to ration out knowledge to impart to his son, without tipping the scales too hard either way. It was tedious and exhausting, and Mors wished he could see his boy as he was, instead of the thorny road he would walk down one day. But what he wanted didn’t matter. What he wanted never merited consideration. 

“Clarus is a good boy,” Mors told Luca, as they laid in bed, breathing the same air, sweat drying on their skin. 

Clarus had performed his role gracefully, kneeling before Regis and receiving the gift of his magic. Already Mors could see his son had a much deeper capacity for magic than he’d ever had. Clarus had held his place and allowed the magic to sear itself into his back, the eagle sculpted in far greater detail than the one Luca wore on his shoulders. 

“He’ll be a magnificent Shield,” Luca whispered, face tucked into the curve of Mors’ neck. “Regis will be a good King.” 

Mors swallowed hard. 

“Yes,” he sighed, “he will be.” 

“He’s infinitely less bratty than you were, at that age,” Luca said, when the silence was done cycling through from melancholic all the way to almost comfortable. 

“I was King, at that age,” Mors replied dryly, “Kings are not _bratty_.” 

Luca snorted, leaning in to rub his forehead against one of Mors’ jagged collarbones. 

“Oh, Your Majesty, I’m afraid I beg to differ.” 

But he laughed and his laughter was the only solace Mors had left in the world, in the nightmare he found himself conducting more often than not. It was… it was something, he supposed. 

* * *

“It’s quite alright,” Mors said, hands in his pockets as he stared down the two figures huddling together inside the cell. “I’m not going to hurt you.” 

“Right,” the girl said, standing up in front of her brother and shielding him as best she could, without making it too obvious that was her intent. “Because it’s not like we tried to kill your dumbass son.” 

“Which you failed at,” Mors pointed out, eyebrows arched, “spectacularly.” 

“Oh, so you’re here to gloat, are you,” she said, eyes narrowed dangerously, as if contemplating violence. 

Given the recklessness of their attempt – Mors needed to stop finding people who blew themselves up as part of their grand plans likable, it was getting ridiculous – he wouldn’t put it past her to try. Maybe she was hoping to get them killed before they could be tortured. Imperial assassins, his saboteurs had told him, were excellently trained. 

Mors smiled wryly. 

“No, Miss Argentum,” he said, tilting his head to the side, “I’m here to hire you.” 

* * *

Tours of the frontlines were harder and harder, the older he got. The strain of the Wall was an unspoken drip of poison in his veins, but he refused to acknowledge it. It would not be forever, after all. After Paddra was lost and the Empire gained a permanent foothold inside the Wall, Tristan took to join Mors on his trips, dead certain there was tracheary afoot. Mors didn’t have the heart to explain there was, just nowhere Tristan would think to look. But with Tristan came Aulea, who’d grown into the sort of selectively fucked up little monster Tristan figured had the best chance of survival, once he was gone. Mors understood the impulse, and beyond that, the profound certainty she would need every single lesson in the long run. But still. She was thirteen and more adept with a knife than he was. 

He liked her, was the thing. He sincerely did. She was vicious and sly and a better liar than men three times her age. And he knew the doom they shared, saw the foxlike shape of her shadow and felt the strange urge to wrap his arms around her and talk her out of something she would not choose for another decade or so. But just like he chose the scars on his eyes – he could see them, in the mirror, even if no one else saw the trails of light in them – she would make her own choices and he knew better than to think he could steal that away. He felt kindred to the little devil that ran around camp, stealing sweets out of the provision boxes and carrying secrets to her father. 

“Today’s my birthday,” Aulea said, sitting on the edge of Mors’ desk, watching him write with the careful look of one memorizing something. “You should give me something.” Mors looked up at her for a long moment, until she snorted. “ _Your Majesty_.” 

“And what exactly would I give you?” Mors asked, one eyebrow arched as she bounced her heels against the side of the desk. 

“I don’t know!” She rolled her eyes. “You’re the King, give me something no one else can’t.” 

Mors licked his lips. 

“The only thing I could give you is magic,” he said dryly, head tilted to the side, watching the way she perked up, “and your father would rather unmetaphorically remove _my_ crown jewels if I did.” 

“You’re old,” she pointed out remorselessly, “it’s not like you’re using them, anyway.” 

He didn’t have to do it. He knew that. But he also knew no matter what, she would find a way to make her own choices, one day. And it wasn’t like he had much use for his magic anymore. All that wasn’t stolen by the Wall was just left festering in his blood. And maybe, he thought, studying the way she stared expectantly at him, fearless and reckless and mad enough to bargain for stakes as high as she would, maybe this was a hurt he could take on himself. 

“Give me your hand,” Mors said, and held it between his own. 

He’d gotten used to it, to open the paths for the Crystal’s magic to flow into people, to grant them access to the Armiger. The first decade of his reign he spent it making so that access to the Armiger was as natural for the Crownsguard as wearing their uniforms. He knew how it went, and it was almost second nature to do it. But instead of leaving the loop open, loosely tangled into the crystal, Mors gathered part of his own magic, the power gathered like rust inside the marrow of his bones and scrapped off the bits and pieces he didn’t need, for the Wall. And then he rolled it over and metaphorically shoved it right under her sternum, closing the circuit in on itself. 

Aulea swayed and nearly toppled into his arms. 

“I was kidding,” she said, staring up at him wide-eyed. 

Mors wondered if having part of his magic meant she could see the scars in his eyes. 

“I wasn’t,” Mors deadpanned, one eyebrow arched. 

“What the hell am I supposed to do now?” Aulea spluttered, and then stared at her hands in fascination, like they belonged to someone else entirely. 

“Not set yourself on fire,” Mors suggested, not entirely in jest, “ideally.” 

* * *

“No,” Luca hissed, in the horrified tones of a man who knew he was speaking sense that would be eminently ignored, “Mors. He’s _fourteen_.” 

Mors watched the boy mow down anyone stupid enough to take him up on his offer to fight him, and sighed. 

“I’m well aware,” he said, in the resigned tones of someone who knew sense was beyond their grasp. “Cor!” 

The boy stood to attention like a dog hearing its master’s whistling. Mors watched him walk up to him, sword held parallel up his arm, ready to strike at the smallest provocation. He was a feral little shit, and the fact he had survived a trip down into the Crag was barely the start of it. 

“Your Majesty,” the boy said, standing before him but not bothering to bow. 

Luca groaned and buried his face into his hands. Mors ignored him. 

“How are you feeling, boy?” Mors asked, lips twitching when Cor’s expression darkened slightly. 

“Better,” he deadpanned, without an ounce of deference, even though it’d been barely a week since they’d found him at the edge of camp, more dead than alive. “Should I leave?” 

“If you want,” Mors said, one eyebrow arched at the resentful look on the boy’s face, like resentment was the baseline for all the expressions he could muster. “Or you can stay. Lyra needs an escort into Vaullerey, how familiar are you with that area?” 

“Not at all,” Cor replied with a shrug, “but I could manage.” He frowned. “What’s in it for me, if I stay?” 

Luca gave up pretenses and chugged back the contents of his flask without bothering to hide it. He hid it less and less, these days. Mors almost felt bad about it, whenever he stumbled on the thought. 

“Definite lack of boredom, for one thing,” Mors told Cor, amused by the suspicious squint he was subjected to for his trouble. “A decent fight, here and there. Is there anything you want?” 

Cor stared up at him for a moment, clearly thinking about it. He looked somewhere between embarrassed and frustrated, as he stared down at his shoes. 

“To be of use.” 

“Fuck all of you,” Luca snarled in annoyance, as he stomped out of the tent. 

Mors reached a hand and ruffled the boy’s hair, snorting when he stared up at him like he’d grown a second head. 

“I’m sure we can figure out something.” 

* * *

“You’ve set up Regis to fail.” 

Mors leaned on the window, forehead pressed to the glass. He made a noise in the back of his throat, when Luca reached out to pull him away from it, and he found himself leaning against him. Mors sighed. He was tired, and his back ached and his bones felt hollow. He wanted to scream, but he didn’t have the energy for it. 

“Mors,” Luca insisted, but it was soft, almost kind. 

Mors didn’t deserve soft or kind. He knew he didn’t. He still basked in it, because years and years of terrible choices and horrible compromises had failed to rob Luca of his warmth, for all they’d driven them both into fantastical exercises in self-destruction. He knew how it ended, of course. He’d seen it, far in the distance, like the lighthouse in Caem, in the middle of a storm. But knowing, it turned out, was fairly cold comfort, once the heat of rage burned through. Mors knew his anger had burned longer than most. He’d spent decades toeing the edge of madness and only hanging on by the rage boiling low in his gut. But now he reached the final stretch, and he found his will wavering, at long last. 

“Not exactly,” Mors whispered, looking up at Luca with a shrug. “Yes, Accordo will be a failure, undoubtedly, but that’s not what I sent him out into the world for.” 

“And what’s that?” Luca asked, frowning, worried. 

Mors remembered, as if in a dream, that his son was heading out into the unknown as well. There were so many things he knew, and he made himself forget, pushing them out of his awareness by hyper-focusing on a very specific chain of events. He reckoned that, if he were a decent sort of person, he would feel bad about it. Guilty. 

He’d never been good with guilt, anyway. 

“To live,” Mors sighed, and then laughed, bitter and soft and heartbroken all over again, “I sent him out to live.” 

* * *

“Swear to me,” Tristan snarled, blood on his mouth, one hand clenched on the front of Mors’ shirt, fingers curled into claws, “swear to me, you fucking cunt, that she’ll be safe.” 

Mors forced himself to look. He’d seen it, before, but as he approached the end of his life, he became more and more conscious of the difference between seeing something and really looking at it, in detail. He took in the blood and the rasping noise of Tristan’s lungs trying their best to work, even though there were far too many holes in them. He’d always known, even before he knew all he did, that Tristan would end like this. It was just the sort of thing he would do, the kind of man he was. 

And yet, for all Mors knew him, truly knew him, the way only true friends knew each other, all the broken, poisonous bits of him, he loved him all the same. 

“I swear,” Mors said, lips twitching as he found himself brushing Tristan’s hair off his face. “As your cunt of a King.” 

Tristan laughed, and coughed, and died, and Mors wondered if it was a blessing or a curse, that those he loved most seemed to always leave him with a smile on their face. 

* * *

Mors knew pulling back the Wall would kill him. Even if he hadn’t torn away a chunk of his magic and shoved it inside Aulea. Even if he weren’t burned to cinders by the Sight. He wasn’t strong enough to do something like that and survive. That was the sort of heroic feat only the better of his line could aspire to. And frankly, knowing what he did, he wasn’t entirely sure death wasn’t a kinder fate, than the glowing armor of the Lucii. 

They’d never spoken to him, in all the years the stupid Ring had been stuck in his hand. He’d never been worthy of their consideration. Not until the night he gathered his closest and dearest, and allowed them to watch as he made a leash out of his will and used it to snap the Wall down and around Insomnia. He heard them, then. Disapproving and enraged, and he would have laughed about it, the sheer ridiculousness of their outrage, if he wasn’t the kind of man who took precautions and left nothing to change. 

“Fuck all of you,” Mors told the choir of his Ancestors, the screaming mass of souls buried within the Ring, and then collapsed as the poison and the strain became too much to bear. 

He managed to see Regis – to pass along the yoke of the Ring and be coherent enough not to curse it out as he did – and Luca – sobbing desperately into his chest, promising to follow and forcing Mors to task him something ridiculous enough to keep alive long enough inertia might keep him going after a while – before he went. But soon enough, he was sinking again, lungs full of something thicker than water, dark and viscous. He fell and fell, and then found himself passing through that space again, though now he knew for sure what awaited him at the end of that fall. 

“I hope you make Him pay,” he told her, the vast, endless expanse of her, shapeless as Time itself, torn asunder and left scattered in the void. 

The Goddess smiled. 

“We will, O Hollow King.” 

**Author's Note:**

> Come hang out on [DW](https://notavodkashot.dreamwidth.org/) or [Twitter](https://twitter.com/notavodkashot), if you'd like.


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